


Just Maybe

by MelissaMalinally



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 02:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17654675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelissaMalinally/pseuds/MelissaMalinally
Summary: What would've happened if Hinata was the one sacrificing her life on the shinobi war for the things and persons she loved? A view with a far luckier ending.





	Just Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, this is just a silly fic I wrote just because I was craving to tap the keyboard, so yeah, here it is
> 
> LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF IT, SO I CAN WRITE BETTER STORIES FOR YOU ALL!!!

Just maybe

Neji was restless; he didn’t think he could stand it for much longer before doing something utterly stupid. And he hated stupidity, but at that moment, he hated, even more, the waiting hall at the hospital, where he had been for eight long hours. Everything was sight-hurting white in there, the neon lights, the walls, the floor, even that sordid clean smell was white and aggressive.

All because of her … it was always her… she was so outrageously careless. He was certain that, had she ever known about the chaos of feelings revolving around her inside him, things wouldn’t have been any different; she would still have doomed him to the despair he had to suffer for months. Because what happened didn’t have to do with him at all. She got in the way of an attack for her blonde love, maybe even for the fate of the ninja world, not for him, he kept reminding himself, trying to crush for good that stupid hope that maybe, just maybe…

The door of the surgery hall opened, and Neji felt the overwhelming wave of relief invading him entirely when his eyes noticed Shizune’s wide smile  
“We did it! She will walk again!” she exclaimed, absolutely worn out, and somehow, the young man in front of her, who had done nothing but hold his head in his hands looked almost as exhausted as her. She got closer to say something the respectable man behind them couldn’t hear as he was consoling his loud and moaning younger daughter  
“Neji-san, wait for them to go away, she wants to see you alone as soon as possible” 

He denied the request with an almost violent head move to the side “She needs to rest now”

“She refuses unless she sees you first”

“She is always so unconscious” he complained fully turning back. At that moment he realized, she was being herself still, and the second wave of relief almost made him spill a tear.

After the war was over, the med nins found her miraculously alive, barely, of course. It took months of endless procedures to pull her out from a critical condition to a delicate one; the procedure they had been waiting to hear the results from that day was a neural surgery to reestablish the connection from her brain to her body, in which she could’ve been dead, or mentally affected for the rest of her days. But she had survived, along with her stubborn, reckless spirit, and that last detail had him in bliss.  
Shizune informed Hinata’s family that she would be up for a visit in a couple of days and father and daughter left happy and grateful. Neji said he had to talk to Lady Tsunade about something, and when he was sure they were far enough he followed the serene woman

“Hinata-sama” he spoke once he was in front of her bed, watching her fragile figure, just skin and bones, her complexion pale as if the sunlight had never touched her skin, a maze of thin plastic tubes surrounded her, her weak breath tarnishing the oxygen mask

Her eyelids were fighting to shut her down for a much needed rest “Neji… nii…ss…” she mumbled with much effort

“I’m glad everything turned out well” surprisingly, he found his own words hard to push out as well

“Glad… you…” she kept trying to communicate

Neji frowned, ready to scold her about how she shouldn’t have taken those spears for them, about how everything was in control and he would’ve saved Naruto, that paying with his life was an insignificant price, which was not the case of hers, being a potential heir to their clan. But he swallowed it all down, and the words knotted his throat, it was a bitter feeling, do his words always had that unpleasant harsh taste? He shook his head and rested a hand on one of hers, cold as ice  
“Get some rest, Hinata-sama” he asked her, and as if his voice was a balm, she fell asleep at last and he allowed himself to kiss her forehead. He lingered the contact a few seconds before leaving  
________________________________________

The gardens of the Hyuga compound were impeccably trimmed, not a leaf in the ground, all branches out of the shape were cut down; it felt as if even the wind and the birds refused to live there and halter the norms of the clan; she hated it, there was nothing natural about that place. But that day, almost a month after the surgery, the equally sleek aesthetics… the soft, calmed gait with that unsettling firmness below, all of his presence getting closer to her made everything around feel harmonic

“Ohaiyo, Hinata-sama” Neji bowed reverentially; for a second she sighted a small grin, or so she thought

“Ohaiyo, Neji-nii-san” she greeted back from her wheelchair, he noticed the regained volume on her face and wrists but wasn’t sure to recall if that rosiness in her cheeks were there before, maybe it was the effect of the exposure to the sun she was having at that moment

“How are you doing this morning?” she noticed softness in his tone “I can tell your recovery is going well”

“Yes, I’m feeling better by the day, thank you” she reported happily “how was your mission?”

“Long and boring, but good” he replied. Of course, at the time all of the missions were about repairmen and reconstruction, which didn’t exactly made him feel at ease with being away for so many weeks “May I sit along with you for a while?” 

“I’d be delighted” she responded with a nod and he reached the bench next to her “How is everything going?” she asked

He sighed with a strange face, she noticed “Good, the reconstruction of the damaged areas is going faster than everyone expected, everything should…” he abruptly stopped, done with the small talk, he asked very gingerly “had he…?” it was obvious he wanted to know about that specific matter

“No, he hasn’t come to visit” she said with a warm smile, saving him the effort of ending such question “it doesn’t matter” she shrugged taking all the importance to the theme

He lowered his head and clenched his fists on his knees “it does matter”

“No, it doesn’t” she rested a hand on his shoulder “the only person I wanted to see is right here with me” he didn’t move “Neji, remember the last thing I said that day?” he didn’t make a sound, but she knew he remembered. It was him who thought she wouldn’t remember

_Hinata fell on the ground, almost on top of another corpse, they were counted by the hundred, her blood escaping from her body, dripping through the spears that had pierced her torso, the air wasn’t filling her lungs anymore, but the sight of the two most beloved men all well and safe filled her reason instead, she smiled_

_Neji ran to her, his face, a mix of anger and pain, “Hinata-sama, why?” he cursed more than asking. Naruto reached her side too, with no less pain or anger_

_“For love” she said with the eyes to the sky before the light abandoned her eyes_

Taking her sight down “Neji, it was for you” she confessed, unable to look at him as she released her deepest secret free

“That cannot be” he whispered with a frozen voice, but deep inside, something rekindled, it was a strange new feeling, but this time he didn’t try to kill it

“And yet, it is” she whispered

She slowly turned back to look directly into his eyes, which were filled with an answer to her feelings. He dropped his guard down right then and there, no more indifference, no more masks, not to her, ever again.

And the wind blew through the gardens of the Hyuuga clan


End file.
